Chapter Eight: Literature of the Rasika Tradition in Hindi

Boundless crimson beauty gleams from his chin and face—
is this the all-pervading light of Brahman that even the Veda cannot sing?
Upon the excellent conch-like neck of Awadh’s prince, a lovely jeweled line shines,
as though the boundary of beauty throughout the three worlds had been drawn there.
A delicate line of hair rests upon the small belly,
like a thread placed by the Creator while fashioning the lovely image.
Or perhaps it is the vine of śṛṅgāra, beautiful to Love’s eyes,
watered and made to grow from the pool of the navel.
Knowing the waist exceedingly slender, the Creator gave it support,
then strengthened it with the binding of three folds.
The rounded hips that remove the people’s sorrow shine like Sudarshana;
a garment glimmers above the waist and over it lies a mass of radiance.
Knees, thighs, and feet—all the limbs are immersed in rasa,
like a pair of lotus stalks with no blossoms yet unfolded.
Seeing the beauty of toes and nails, the poet closes his mouth:
they are drops of rain from the Svati star resting upon lotus petals.
A yellow garment shines upon the body and catches the eye,
like lightning entwined around the body of a fresh cloud.
Or has it been dyed yellow in the waves and colours of Sita’s beauty?
Knowing the path of love, it does not leave him even for a moment.
At his left, filled with ever-new colour, Jānaki shines exquisitely;
what supreme poet could describe that supramundane beauty?
Whoever meditates upon Raghubara for an age without her
does not please the Lord and dies exhausted by fruitless effort.
When even an atomic drop of her rasa touches someone’s heart,
the Lord, devoted to rasa, remains lovingly subject to that person.
Every stainless and lovely limb of excellent Sita is made of that rasa,
accessible to the supreme worshipper and forming the dense life of her Beloved.
Her two thighs seem elegant plantain pillars,
a single meditation of compact consciousness and bliss, accessible to Rama alone.